Published in The Winding Trail·Apr 26, 2021Escape from the Philippines — Part 8 Homeward BoundThe first issue I encountered with changing my flight was the fact that the Iberia check-in desk was empty and the Iberia customer service desk was empty. There wasn’t a soul around. Fine, I thought — I’ll go up to the British Airways customer service desk. She wasn’t much help…Travel7 min readTravel7 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Apr 22, 2021Escape from the Philippines — Part 7 One Final ChallengeTired, exhausted and with fourteen hours and twelve minutes to go, Muscat Airport was my new home. By this point, I had calculated, that I had been on the go for more than 48 hours, and probably only really managed 3 hours of sleep in that time. And that sleep…Travel Writing6 min readTravel Writing6 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Mar 5, 2021Escape from the Philippines — Part 6 Oh Man, Welcome to Oman!The world was changing faster than anything I could have imagined, in my eight-hour flight from the Philippines to Muscat, nearly every country in the world had closed its border. …Oman4 min readOman4 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Oct 15, 2020Escape from the Philippines — Part 5 We Welcome You to HellThere’s an old age saying that hell is other people, I disagree with that statement, hell is in fact Manila Terminal 1 on the eve of the worst pandemic to hit earth in our lifetimes. The first stop on the bus ride from Clark to Manila was about to haunt…Travel7 min readTravel7 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Sep 17, 2020Escape from the Philippines — Part 4 Touchdown in ClarkI don’t know what the weirdest place you’ve ever booked an international flight in is, but I’m not sure any of them can beat sat outdoors in 35-degree heat; queuing for a bus that may never come, with 300 hundred other desperate travellers, all the while an open sewer runs…Lockdown6 min readLockdown6 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Sep 15, 2020Escape from the Philippines — Part 3 A Bit of Good NewsAs you’ll know by now if you’ve read Part 2, I was now sat in the back of a tricycle being bounced around to El Nido airport. At this point everything was up in the air, I couldn’t put my hand on any single solid bit of news, and countries…Philippines6 min readPhilippines6 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Sep 13, 2020Escape from the Philippines — Part 2 Through the Looking GlassThere’s a strange disorientating feeling about waking up stone-cold sober after a night of moderate-ish drinking. Staring at the ceiling of my BNB with the air conditioning worming away on full blast I contemplated the news I had received the night before, the fact the island of Palawan had gone…The Winding Trail5 min readThe Winding Trail5 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Sep 11, 2020Escape from the Philippines — Part 1 The Best Laid PlansIn March 1942 General Douglas MacArthur made his escape from the Philippines on board a fleet of US Navy PT boats. …The Winding Trail5 min readThe Winding Trail5 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Sep 26, 2019Stepping Off The Tourist Trail…A couple of months back I had a conversation that I just don’t seem to be able to get out of my head. I was sat on a bus heading from that collective hell hole known as Siem Reap — where Cambodian culture goes to die, (the town, not the…Travel4 min readTravel4 min read
Published in The Winding Trail·Sep 24, 2019In Defense of PodgoricaNow, if you’ve read any travel blogs at all, (traitor) plenty of people seem to believe that Podgorica is basically Dante’s fifth circle of hell, a place so devoid of personality, you may as well spend your holiday inside a vacuum. …Travel3 min readTravel3 min read
